Judge Richardson said: "I regard the failures relating to the asbence of proper and effective alarms as being acutely serious coupled with a complete failure of the management to appreciate the loss of water supply would directly and seriously lead to a major and life-threatening hazard unless identified at once and immediate measures taken to resolve the problem".

"Large companies must expect to pay heavy fines when they lamentably fail their workers and others to whom they owe a health and safety duty.

"It must be made clear beyond peradventure that health and safety obloigations are exactly that - even when there is a challenging commercial climate.

Former owners of the Scunthorpe steelworks, Tata Steel, have been fined £1million.

"In this case I have no doubt if there had been ignition of the vapour there would have been a serious risk of death to the workforce in the immediate vicinity of that event. There was a real risk of ignition but that did not eventuate.

"I have no doubt those in the immediate area were at very high risk of death had that occurred.

Earlier Judge Richardson praised senior managers at the Scunthorpe plant for attending the July hearing.even though he had little doubt,the experience was "uncomfortable" for each one of them.

He said:"It is a right and proper that senior managers attend such a hearing and do not hide away, leaving matters to their lawyers".

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In response to the judgement, a Tata Steel spokesperson said:"The health and safety of our employees and contractors is our most important priority.

"Tata Steel constantly places a great deal of emphasis on creating a strong and ever improving safety culture in the organisation – and into improving our processes and procedures. We want to ensure everyone working on our sites is safe.”

Health and Safety inspector Stephen Hargreaves said: “It was extremely fortunate no one was seriously affected by this incident. Had the flammable vapour cloud ignited this could have resulted in multiple fatalities.

“This incident highlights the need for all duty holders to implement and address all concerns and potential risks which have been identified. Tata’s failure to do so in this case put a number of workers at risk of serious harm.”